TO LEAK OR NOT TO LEAK,
THAT IS THE QUESTION

. . . whether 'tis nobler in the rafters to bear the drips and puddles of outrageous condensation, or by opposing end this.

Yes, end this - - - please!

Somewhere I read (I think it was regarding the Washougal school) a school official complaining about how hard it was to find leaks in "high-tech" roofs and repair them. I will try to track it down for you. I read these things and later the light bulb comes on, and the tidbit of info grows in importance, unrecognized at the time.

Having done penance on a couple of roofs in my day, I know a bit about them. "High-tech?" When I read that, I thought, "he must be kidding." "High-tech," indeed. That would be where, for example, cedar shakes were invented to hold down the tarpaper, right?

Now, there are a couple of things that need to be brought into the mix to complete the picture. First, out of the seemingly blue, we have a national epidemic of leaky schools. Curious to say the least. Second, if we take some people at their word, they are unable to make repairs. Very, very curious, wouldn't you say?

The whole thing came into focus for me (the current entered the tungsten filament) when it was reported in my local newspaper, The People's Daily Neurosis, PDN (Actually, they call it the Peninsula Daily News here in Port Angeles, Washington) that our new (7-year old) fire station had a mold problem and the roof and its support structure were rotten. (I will have to dig that article out to give you a citation, but the follow-up article can be found on page A6 of the 1/20/02 edition).

Apparently the roof did not leak. The moisture problem was due to condensation. That would make it extremely difficult to find and repair a leak, wouldn't it? Are school officials 'shining' you, then, when they talk about leaks? The "high-tech" is just mumbo-jumbo so they don't have to explain themselves. Have you noticed how the computer gets blamed for many problems when the failure is elsewhere? Shuts up a lot of complainers. Well, since there is no computer, the next best fall back position is to blame "high-tech" in general. (Something that I myself do, but with adequate reason).

The problem is that the fire station is a 'sealed building' with inadequate ventilation. The condensation came from the breathing and cooking that went on inside. Cooking may not be a factor in sealed schools, but there are a lot more warm and exhaling bodies. We need to quit giving students tests because it makes them sweat too much.

If condensation is the source of these so-called "leaks," then what can you say about the CO₂ level inside? If the moisture is trapped inside the building, wouldn't the CO₂ also be trapped?

Were the firemen being made sick just like the school teachers and school kids? If so, it wasn't the mold that was the cause. If they weren't made sick, then why? Are firemen immune because of their conditioning? Are they 'superior,' some kind of super-humans? I don't think so. My gut feeling is that the issue was too sensitive to report, and we just weren't told about illnesses. The firemen were moved elsewhere, but that could have been only because the building was structurally unsound not because they were getting sick. Draw your own conclusions.

Was the carbon dioxide level reported?

Of course not.

Did the firemen know that the same thing that was making them sick (if it were) was the same thing that has been making many other people sick including school kids?

Did they take their case public? Did they stand on street corners in protest? Did they complain to their union? Do these firemen know what firemen knew when I was young, that CO₂ smothers a flame by depriving it of oxygen?

Are these firemen still role models for young men?

If so, why are so many young men killng themselves? Draw your own conclusions.

Copyright © 2002, Donald L. Beeman. All rights reserved.

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